Often I appreciate and therefore adopt new words. At a gathering where I ran into a niece, I heard her say, “You’re so avuncular.” The “ular” ending told me the word likely is an adjective, which it is. I’d heard and used the word before, and I’m glad of my specific relationship with Kathy: I’m her uncle, and to her, I’m avuncular, I suppose because I act like an uncle.

But why doesn’t the word have a feminine counterpart? Why can’t a woman who acts like an aunt be considered avauntular? Let’s decide right now to coin that word.

The Medina side of my family, at one time comprising 16 siblings, produced numerous aunts. Even those who married my uncles (some more than once) also became aunts, and therefore avauntular.

I like the Merriam-Webster definition best: “Like an uncle; kind or friendly like an uncle.”

Why doesn’t the English language have the counterpart? It’s true that we can find “avauntular” in a dictionary, but it’ll be there only as a contrast, a word that would have been legitimized had dictionarians gotten around to including it there.

To be sure, I looked up “avauntular” in a number of dictionaries, none of which agreed to accept the word. One source calls it a “madeupical” word, one that people campaign for inclusion but possibly not hard enough.

And on this subject, allow me to express concerns about other lexical abuses that ought to be corrected:

We have “northernmost” but not “northernmore.” We have “aren’t” as a contraction of “am not.” How did any lexicographer let that one slip by? “Amn’t” is the logical contraction of “am not,” but we’ve been taught that “amn’t” is substandard, even when we all know “I are not” is simply bad English.

• • •

Watching the finals of the NCAA basketball tournament last week, between the Villanova Wildcats and the North Carolina Tar Heels, I sensed that the losing Wildcats were getting all the attention. This I pointed out on my Facebook page and in that week’s Work of Art.

It seemed strange that the biggest amateur basketball game of the year would be on a TV channel not everyone receives. Why couldn’t it be on ABC, CBS, NBC or even ESPN?

I cited the fact that the TV cameras seemed pointed mainly at the Carolina bench or its coach, Roy Allen Williams, or — especially — the Tar Heels. I noted that only the most seasoned hoops fan would have inferred that there was another team in the game — the Villanova Wildcats, their being virtually shunned.

Well, soon after my comments appeared, JJ Trujillo, a Mora resident and graduate of Highlands, wrote to explain what I had failed to understand.

He wrote:

“I believe you were watching the Tar Heels team stream, where the main focus was on that of the Tar Heels and their fans. You mentioned announcers Brendan Haywood and Wes Durham. Villanova also had its own team stream. Jim Nantz was the announcer on the main broadcast on TBS.”

That explains it. I apparently punched the TV remote only enough to receive a championship game but didn’t realize there were options. I hadn’t been aware of the team stream feature.

On the subject of naïvete about matters in general: A few years ago, I sent an email to a reporter, Kim Holland, of KRQE, chiding her about pronouncing a man’s name Pacheeko rather than Pacheco.

Pardon me, I wrote, but around these here parts, we’re cheek-less. The cheeky TV reporter fired back explaining that the man she cited prefers Pacheeko. I wrote about that in the next column. And soon, a couple of Optic readers said that in the military, they’d met men named Pacheeko, even though the written name contains a short “e,” the way we pronounce it here.

I think the TV reporter’s spewing of venom was over my cheekiness in correcting her. She was right. And as to JJ Trujillo’s email about the Tar Heels, I also appreciate his input. Really.

So if you see anything glaring (even not-so-glaring) in my columns, please set me straight. I will appreciate your feedback, and I will not be offended.

• • •

Why haven’t the presidential gold dollars made a bigger splash? I have never received any — even as change — without specifically requesting them, usually at a bank.

And I notice that almost every time I make a small purchase or pay a restaurant tab, the gold dollars I give out undergo an inspection, lest the clerk suspect I’m trying to pass off quarters as dollars.

I keep them handy; they often go to panhandlers. But with the craftspersonship that went into the minting of these coins, with U.S. presidents’ visages beautifully engraved on them, I’m surprised we don’t see many around.

Specifically, I recall the time when someone put a Sacagawea dollar coin into a juke box, expecting to listen to several tunes in a restaurant. All that action did was jam the machine.

It’s true that we have machines — water dispensers, candy and pop machines that accept dimes, quarters and one- and five-dollar bills, provided they have no wrinkles — but why can’t there be technology to accept the gold presidential coins at Laundromats or other self-service places where people insert coins?

Let’s not forget that invention is the mother of necessity. Provide the technology and the Presidential coins will follow.

• • •

Our third-born son, Ben, 37, a resident of Albuquerque, qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon going on as this is being written. Ben has run in a number of marathons but none as well known at the Boston run.

Unfortunately, the race will not have even begun by the time this column is submitted. We’ll keep you posted.

Are there other Boston Marathoners in the area? Joe McCaffrey, a professor at Highlands University and a member of the Optic’s editorial board, has seven runs to his credit. I’d like to publish a list of such local runners in a future column. Please sent in the names of runners, with a brief description, to one of the email addresses below.